Infrastructure, Companies, and Imaginaries: The Argentine Electricity System under State Control (1947–1989)

Abstract

This article analyses the trajectory of the Argentine electricity system under state control between 1947 and 1989. From a perspective linked to the field of science and technology studies, the research examines how policies, regulations, companies, and infrastructure were linked within the system during that period, specifying two distinct phases. The first phase (1947–76) was a period of construction and expansion, characterised by the consolidation of state-owned companies, regulation of the sector, and the articulation of a developmentalist imaginary linked to the industrialisation process. The second phase (1976–89) was marked by the beginning of the dismantling of the entrepreneurial state within the framework of a new model of accumulation oriented towards financial valorisation and a mercantile imaginary that redefined energy policy. Despite certain continuities in infrastructure and regulations, the lack of funding and indebtedness led to the deterioration of public companies and the electricity crisis of the late 1980s. The article shows how the contradictions between the inherited infrastructure and the new political-economic orientations paved the way for the privatisation reforms of the 1990s.